The Wilmingtonian., 1887-01-22
Abrogate Capital Punishment.

to discuss the abrogation of capital punish
meat.
Ignorance, long continued feuds aud bri
be- have entered the witness box to swea
away life. The fate Of Robinson who wa
recently dragged to the soaffold at Now Gas
tie ID stronger argument against capita
punishment than can be adduced by th
strongest sentimentalist 10 the entire land
Robinson went to his death protesting hi
innocency and the misuness surrounding th'
charges of guilt encouraged well defined
doubt concerning those charges. We asser
shat . most respectable number OF thos'
present at Robinson trial would not have ad
Judged him guilty from the evidence pro.
duoed in the witness box, and the present
Legislature should be asked to grant stat
utoiy enactment whereby judicial muidei'
shalt be unknown in the future history Of
Delaware.
The eye for an eye and tooth for tooth
theory is sound doctrine except when antag'
onized by doubts and uncertainties and mt
mau should forfeit his life By the command
OF the law unless the evidence adduced
against the accused is incontrovertble.
Witnesses however honest in their inten-
tions may have reached conclusions from el-
roneous data and thus have brought the in
nooent to conviction.
Titus, over in Jersey, is standing face, to
face with the gallows and the evidence which
brought him there Is purely circumstsntial.
Ciuverius was hurled into eternity last week
at Richmond, by evidence which bore indi
cations Of having been manufactured, al
least, In part. II is not a palatable thought
that in majority of those cases where men
hav been hung on purely circumstautial evi-
de ace, there is a possibility of proof turning
up that the wrong man has been hanged.
It. is now the generally received opinion
that Wilson who was executed last THURSDAY
in Pennsylvania was laboring under an hal
lucination when he pgofessed to have killed
Anthony Dealy.
Pathological scientists who turned the
zcalpel and microscope upon the brain Of
Wilson claim that his statements could not
have been accepted as conclusive, or in other
words the pathological charges in the brain
substance were SO marked that a confession
orguilt was wholely without significance.
DE-. Dercum who is a specialist upon in.
sanity and who IS pathologist at the Nor
risto~n Insane Asylum unreservedly express
es the opinion that Wilson's confession was
not entitled to any credence whatever.
We here subjoin statements Of DIR. Der
cum, Rev. Mr.. Randall and others concern
ing Wilson's irresponsible statements.
Or. Dercum said 'that from what he bad
seen of John Wilson's brain he was satisfied
he was man whose confession could not be
believed.
The startling answer to direct question
came after the specialist who is to make an
exhaustive study of the hanged mans mind
had given. the interviewer the following
strtement of his first observations "There
were evidences OF infamm alton of both durG
and pia mater. Tue brain was eiematous
aud the amount of cerebro-spinal fluid was
largely In excess. The brain was unusually
large, weighing 57t ounces. 1t was soft
throughout. The convolutions were in many
resp, cts decidedly abnormal. The inference
is justifiable that the brain was diseased and
also that Its growth and development had
been abnormal from the very outset
~ can't believe" continued DR.. Dercnm,
''that Wilson murdered Anthony Dealy. Do
you know that lunatics are sometimes the
shrewdest of people. They make the cutest
swindlers, forgers of notes and the like.
This man might have read the long accounts
of the finding of that body, and while read
ing, the impression might have come to him,
4 am che man who is wanted for murder.
Aud then weave the chain Of evidence
against himselfp
Exactly so, said the specialist Though
of course, you understand all am saying to
you, outside my observations on the brain, is
merelya theory. When say that this brain
growth was abnormal from the outset it may
not have been SO from birth, but like tres
that cetues iis crookedness more plainly al
It grows"
THE FEELING IN NoRRlsTowN.
Trere are many people in Norristown who
now believe that John M. Wilson atoned nc
orime, and that the Wissahickou mystery il
still as tangled as the cords of the rope tina
hanged him. His case, since the doctor
have apoken, is on every tongue, and there
are people to be found who are all at sea q
to whether Stahl lives and Dealy was mur
dered or whether Stahl was murdered AM
Desly wandered.
One of the men, who was close to JohnWil
son when the moments marked the comin